Winter of Zombie 2015: James Dean

Winter of Zombie 2015: James Dean

You’re reading Books, Beer and BLOGshit! Its the only blog on the internet that looks cool as hell in a leather jacket with a cigarette dangling from its mouth! I am you sex symbol host, Mr. Frank!
Author James Dean is on The BLOGshit today. No, not the James Dean of breakfast meats fame. Nope, not that James Dean either, he’s been dead a long time. We are talking about the James Dean that is sick and tired of hearing all these James Dean jokes. When you hear James Dean this is the only James Dean you should be thinking about. Have we said James Dean enough to get him far up in the SEO?

James Dean!

The Blogshit: Let’s cut to the chase, what are you promoting for the Winter of Zombie?

James Dean: I’d like to promote the fight for equal rights of all undead kind! It’s time for Zombies to stand up…or crawl, or drag themselves along the ground…maybe just sit and rot in the corner…

You know what, screw it. Let’s talk about my book, This Dying World: The End Begins. It’s the story of Dan Foster, who wakes up in the middle of the night to find all these annoying zombie things making a complete mess of his neighborhood and really driving down the property value of his house.

Dan escapes with his wife Abby and daughter Katie and travels across the Midwestern United States during the middle of winter, trying to reach the safety of his brother’s home…which is conveniently placed about 3 miles west of the middle of nowhere.

The Blogshit: It’s rarely ever talked about, but how do you envision the outcome of the zombie world you have created? Is there hope? Will humanity succumb to the new world order? What is the outcome of all this horrible zombie business?
James Dean: Well, the problem with a zombie apocalypse is that last little word…apocalypse. Now I know there are a few different ideas on how absolute that word is, but generally it means a shitty time will be had by all. The villagers will not rejoice, the local store will run out of good humor bars, and The Walking Dead will probably be cancelled.

With that being said, is there hope? Sure, there’s always hope. But I have a saying I use a lot. Fill one hand with hope, and the other with crap…see which one fills up faster. The world that the Fosters live in is dying, and humanity is going to take a huge hit. Most have already succumbed, and the numbers of the dead grow every day.

As far as the outcome…I’ll let you know. It all depends on when the voices in my head stop arguing with each other long enough to clue me in on what will be happening. The fun part about writing this story is I have no idea what will happen next. In many ways, my characters tell me how their lives are going and what their next moves are. If I try to force it, they don’t like it and they mess up the story for me. I mean really, I created the jerks and they STILL don’t listen to me!

The Blogshit: As a writer of zombie fiction, do you feel you can sustain your career writing about zombies only or do you feel you will need to write outside the sub-genre to continue? What avenues will you branch out to if you do feel a need to expand?
James Dean: I think it’s usually more of a want than a need to write outside the genre. There are always people who want to read zombie fiction, so I would be willing to bet that an author can sustain themselves on zombies alone if they want to. But for me personally, I love horror as a whole. I can easily see myself branching off into other areas of horror fiction. Plus my geek side still loves sci-fi and sword and sorcery genres too, and I may eventually write in those genres as well. I guess it all depends on how I feel when I start typing.

The Blogshit: What is more important to the story: A sympathetic human survivor or a zombie with an interesting storyline?

James Dean: What about a sympathetic zombie survivor with a pet human as his storyline?

Honestly, I think you need a little of both. The sympathetic human gives the reader someone to relate with. The more real the character the more your audience can slip in to the role of that person. (sounds dirty doesn’t it?) A real person is a flawed and imperfect creature, and a character should reflect that.

But no matter how realistic your character is, if they don’t have an interesting zombie storyline to live with, the story can get stale really fast. But if your zombie grows with your character, giving your human survivors new challenges to overcome, you end up with a story that stays fresh and interesting.

The Blogshit: For you, who are the most important writers in zombie fiction at this moment?
James Dean: I’ll be sappy here and say pretty much the indie community as a whole. If it wasn’t for all these indie authors paving the way for new authors like myself, I would probably have never given writing a serious shot.

Individually (and this should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me) Eric A. Shelman would rank on top. Besides being a big fan of his writing, he’s helped me in so many ways to get my first book out there. Through him I met the person who eventually edited my book, Ramona Martine. He pointed me to Giles Batchelor, who is a top beta reader as far as I’m concerned. He set me up with Jeff Kosh to do my cover art. And indirectly because of Eric I got to meet a great supporter and soon to be author Lana Sibley. (YOU BETTER BE WRITING LANA! DON’T MAKE ME COME OUT THERE!)

Hey Eric, you can mail me my check now!

Now of course there are the ones I enjoy reading. Mark Tufo, of course…Bobby Adair, John O’Brian, Shawn Chesser, Chris Philbrook, Ted Nulty…honestly I could keep going. It will sound cheesy, but if an author can make all the voices in my head shut up long enough to carry me off into their story, I think that is a pretty important author.

James Dean: Umm, really? Is there room for sex in the ZA? If all you do is run, hide, eat, and sleep…what’s the point? Now, should people get pregnant in the ZA? I would say probably not. But if you have a chance to get laid in the apoc and you turn it down, I’d shoot you out of principle.The Blogshit: Is there room for sex in the zombie apocalypse?

The Blogshit: How much consideration do you give to the seasons in your zombie stories?

James Dean: Seasons are very important in my story. The whole book takes place over the course of a couple weeks in the middle of a Midwestern winter. The cold doesn’t really bother the zombies in my world, but it does pose a significant challenge to the survivors. The roads become impassable, there’s frostbite to worry about, and there’s always that little issue of freezing to death. Even simply walking can lead to serious injury from slipping on ice.

Of course, spring and summer come with their own challenges. There are storms, floods, droughts, and all the other issues that come with changing of the seasons to challenge any survivor. Throw the fact that rotting corpses are now getting warmed up into the mix and the world is going to start smelling worse than an outhouse on an asparagus farm.
James Dean: Dead Fred’s Meaty MasterpiecesThe Blogshit: Our final question always revolves around zombie themed food. This Winter of Zombie, Books, Beer and BLOGshit wants you to consider setting up a food truck to cater to a zombie clientele. What would you name your Zombie Food Truck?